


Amenable

by aPaperCupCut



Category: Penumbra (Video Games)
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Mental Illness, Other, Purple Prose, Red lives, Slow Updates, Will add tags as I update, be ready for really sappy really amature prose, because i love red ok?, big focus on red, eldritch creature tuurngait, i basically make up an entire system of how exactly the tuurngait works lol, identity crisis galore, im trying and idk how im doing :-/, lots and lots of vague worldbuilding, mentions of suicide and suicide attempts, not sure where exactly thisll go - only have 4 chaps planned, red is a sad, red is nonsensical only in the sense that youre not using the right perspective, there might be quite a lot of violence later, well. its both an alien. and also its eldritch. ok its a primordial alien of cosmic-horror origin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 17:39:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19480792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aPaperCupCut/pseuds/aPaperCupCut
Summary: Red wakes up, and goes looking for his walkietalkie friend.The Tuurngait doesn't function on the same plane of existence as most other creatures of the Earth. This has strange consequences - and, in one universe, it amounts to nothing; in others, it creates a slow and gentle ripple effect, barely felt until its consequences have already been experienced.





	1. wake up, red, it's time for a wake up call

With a blink, Red awakens, and the suddenness of his awareness catches him deeply off guard.

Hadn't he been… Why is he… 

He shuffles, moving on the balls of his feet. Red is crouching, the walls bearing down on all sides of him, but no panic rushes over him. He's used to walls, packed earth and ice, surrounding him. The feeling is like being wrapped in cloth, and it's become more comforting than anything else.

It appears that he is in… some kind of nook, some kind of cranny. Like a drawer that is not a drawer, pulling out from behind a hidden wall inside a meticulously kept cupboard. Pressing up against his shin is a metal grate, and he can see flickers of hot coals and embers through it. The metal is cool, and something strange, upside down in its complexity, reverberates through his fingers as he caresses its openings.

Red shakes his head, once, twice, a curious sound, like a ball rolling around in an otherwise empty bowl, cascading in his ears. He itches them, tentatively at first, then runs ragged fingernails through filthy, clumpy hair. Gunk curls beneath his fingernails, and he sniffs them gently before picking the grey red stuff out, flicking it onto the ground.

Bringing himself back to the small quarters he finds himself captive in, he shuffles again, except this time forward instead of aimlessly side to side. To his surprise, the front wall easily pushes outward at the slightest pressure from his foot, and he climbs unsteadily out. A pleased sound hums around him.

Hm. Not a captive, then.

Red shakes himself once more, rubbing his dandruff and muck covered fingers on his shirt. It won't help the filth much, but it's something.

Now. What is he doing here? Hadn't he been…

Oh. His friend. His dearest companion, an ear to his words, pressed to that lovely device, like a lover's lips to his wounds. A balm, and yet he… he…

Hadn't he died?

Red is not… Red is _not_ dead. He would know, he would! Red may not be in full possession of his brain's facilities, but he knows enough that he would only face fire and blood once he dies. But that is not what Red sees! That is not what poor, confused Red sees!

What poor, bewildered Red sees instead is an empty, uninteresting room - one, he knows, that connects to the main boiler room, one that is close by to the incinerator--

The incinerator!

Red whirls around on creaky, protesting limbs, and rushes out, hurrying, thoughts dancing as eels through salty, foamy waves, sand fluttering in the wake of ocean winds. His hands shake as he fumbles with his ring of keys, fumbles as he enters the room - the room his brain told him he has died within. 

Is he a ghost…? Is this what death is…?

It stands, as it always does, an endless temptation that crawls across his skin, when night has no darkness and day has no light. Sometimes, he finds himself scrambling at its front, breath sharp and stinging, his heart as a rabbit's in his aching chest. A few times, his body would wring itself in front of it, and he would prostrate himself before it, as a worshiper before his beloved deity, words heard and not simply his thoughts made into nothingness. Now, now he only drops to his knees, focused entirely upon that drawer, that drawer he would smooth his fingers upon, his knuckles across, as if to soothe the temper of a fearful pup.

It is pulled out, a sacrilege he’d never tolerate before. Inside are - ashes. Ashes?!

Ashes… but not his.

He falls to his knees, and shoves belligerent hands within. Red sifts through them, staining his already filth smeared hands with grey, and he smells them, inhales the dust straight into his mouth, tasting them.

They are not his - he knows his scent, he knows his breath, he knows his flesh. Such as it is - he's tasted himself before, in many ways. These are not his own - if anything, they taste of dust and disuse, and the image in his mind is of besmirched cloths and puce spattered bandages.

Then, alarm runs through him - there is a mirage, a memory of an object buried within the dust. He pulls at his pockets, and all that he finds is his ring of keys. It is as it always is - isn't it?

He lifts it, lapping a line around the metal ring with his tongue, and feels the weight within his hands. With a murmur, he lets it drop, the sound meaningless to him as his mind whirrs. Saliva spills from it, droplets spattering in the dust, and he doesn't see.

A whisper, a calling; Red leans forward, and he frowns as he listens. One of the inhabitants of the round is sobbing fitfully; trying to silence itself, it only groans louder. It is missing, aching, for its friend, its _compadre._ And he swivels himself, once more gazing upon that memory, left in the ashes that are not his.

It is like a shattering, not at all pleasant, as he realizes what must be. He bites his tongue, sways as he bolts to his feet; half remembered words struggle to escape him, to be spoken to yearning walls, to voiceless ears. He thumbs his lips, those aching, dry creatures of ill motion, feels them mouth the words, the _words_ that he spoke--

_“I have visited my friend Death, but never have I stayed; now, my dear companion, I must ask you to let me stay. Death is an impatient host, and I must admit I am eager for its doorstep.”_

Half spoken, half heard.

He turns about, hurrying once more, a mumble bursting through him, completely unintelligible to him. His friend, his listener, his radio companion - where is he? God, gods, above, below, the ones that never were and always are, _where is he?!?!_

__

__

_“You can be the king of rats, as I was, if you wish! I've left behind a bit of a meek kingdom, but alas, beggars must not be choosers!”_

Red throws open the door to the main chamber, eyes skittering over the immense door he privately begs to still be sealed, and stumbles as he enters his reading room. His books are a mockery, still and undisturbed, avoiding his gaze like the repetitious fools they are. They scorn him, but he doesn't mind it; he feels dizzy, like the shadows are swirling around him, and he must've shouted without thought -

_“Fools! Fools who do not command their vile bodies are not for my attention! Spurn another, but escape my presence, for I won't forgive!”_

But perhaps not, perhaps it was just the creaking ice above, for his lips, delirious as they are, do not shape the air into sounds that can be heard, let alone spoken.

He halts, nearly unable to bring himself to check his sleeping room, his dining room. There is a sickness within, he knows, that comes from sleepless hours and time spent scratching the ramparts, a restlessness that is all consuming breeding in the walls, lice and fleas dancing about inside his bedsheets. But in he must go, and what must be done will be done. Needs must, _needs must._

There is nothing inside; nothing except for the box on the wall, normally hidden, except now it is open, wires dangling from where they have been ripped.

He clutches his chest, tears pearling in his eyes. Red departs from his throne rooms as a whisper, feet plodding themselves into the main chamber. He knows what he'll find. He knows what has been done. Wet, inside his ears, spooling from his fingertips; he knows that what horrors are hidden have been found. He knows what has been _seen,_ and where his dearest friend has ventured. He can only…

He can only…

The door.

Open, gaping, drooling. Teeth, unseen; it hungers. It is never full.

He trembles. His hands; they shiver, he can't stop them, he can't stop the churning space between his eyes and those delicate bones, can't stop how his voice sounds, wordless and yet so caustic.

The words mean nothing to it. The voice means nothing to it. No protests, nor cries, nor begs, could ever mean anything to the gaping maw that has _seduced_ his beloved friend, his beloved inheritor.

“Beguiler,” and Red speaks, a rasp against his brutal teeth, through the sparse whiskers on his lip. And Red will not _bow_ to the unforgiven. Red will _not._ “I will rip your jaw wide, for no friend shall ever abandon another. Hark, depraved creature, for I will not abandon.”

And his hand, his shaking, blistering hand, it rises without his consent, it rises and it eviscerates the darkness. It rises and it kills the monster crowding at the mouth of the door. Red will not die to a guardian. 

Red will only die once.

How feet do shake when they walk; how shoulders do shiver when they wake. How Red does still when he departs into the door, something much stronger than gin or vodka pushing him forward.

Red will only die once, and only at the hands of another; only at the hands to his better.


	2. muse, muffled, unsound alarm

_When it first awakens, it is not fully awake. All it is aware of is the presence of something warm around it, covering it gently with rough palms._

_It remembers those moments; it remembers how it opened, a flower leaning to the sun. A breath against it, a back that is not there shivering at the sensation. And it opened, opened its senses._

_“...and Red cannot do that, Red mustn’t do that,” a voice says, displeasure and mockery making the words fat and sick against it. It is so badly startled, and yet it does not move. It cannot._

_A sigh; it feels itself tremble, and it is not afraid. Not afraid… no, something else._

_“I hate them. Why… why do they do that?” Something like a whine burns through it, through **them** and it knows it is not alone. “I wasn't… I…”_

_It hurts. It hurts, and doesn't know why, but each word that falls upon them bursts like rain inside, and they yearn to know - and the words, the words know._

_A sound, then; a shock of something sparks through them, something that badly starts the speaker. It struggles to adjust, feeling like it cannot grip itself, feeling like it is falling. Even as it scrambles to know why it feels the rush of freefall, even as it knows its own bodylessness. A huff, a gruff exhale, and they are shoved, and it is shoved, down and **deep and sleepless.**_

* * *

_It wakes after, in random sparks and sputters at first, until it is awake more and more, until it never sleeps._

_It cannot decide if it likes being awake._

_The first thing it learns is that it is not alone. The next is that it might as well be, for its companion - its other self - its larger part - is not aware of it. It is not known, and it is not heard._

_It cannot speak._

_Even as words fall like dust from disrupted earth from them, it cannot speak. The sounds refuse, and each time it tries, it tires and they grow sickly in response._

_But its other self speaks so very often, a constant stream of dialogue that fills it up, and it finds itself sitting, curled up within them, enraptured. Stories, sights, things it cannot touch nor see on its own - all is given to it._

_And it loves. It loves the words._

_Time passes like it does not, and it reaches past itself and loses its dissatisfaction. It loves the sounds that come from them, and it loves sitting and devouring the sounds. It watches, with wide, gaping, swallowing eyes, watches and watches and watches, as slowly their eyes clear and they can **see.**_

_It is not seen, but it does not require to be seen. It is not seeking that. And so they do not know._

* * *

_It does not care about how things change with time. Time does not exist for them - they are the same, always, regardless of anything else. And they are always._

_It does find itself a new activity, however, as they exist. Because they…_

_They don't want to exist? They don't understand._

_It doesn't understand._

_Through their eyes, it sees the darkness, the encroaching walls. They close above it, above its other self, as its other self chatters louder and louder until the chatters are **screams.**_

_But why?_

_Books, scattered every which way; at the beginning, when it just began to gain sight through their eyes, after the mutters of others through their ears died away, its other self read. It could not read, but often the other would read aloud, and muse about possibilities beyond its understanding. But then, its other self’s hands fell, and the books fell, and the words fell in a wave, and suddenly all was silent. Except for the screaming._

_It held the hand that cleaved, held it back many times. As they ranted and raved, as they spat out tears and insults--_

_**let me go let me go red wants to go red wants to go please why why why do you punish red poor red why do you punish poor poor stupid empty headed red red has not done wrong red is good red is a good boy red is good--** _

_It withheld the hand. They are constant. They are always._

_They are not silence._

_But they are._

_It tries, it tires, and all it can do for so very long is hold back the hand that cleaves._

* * *

_There is a fat happiness, fed and blessed against it. This is new. This is good._

_And the thoughts that curl, curl around it and that pick at them, are **not.**_

_It will not allow the hand to fall. Not yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, to be clear: this character is agender, using it/its pronouns. currently doesnt really have a name - if you want, you can give your two cents? im only coming up with kant. any authors that mightve been reds favs work
> 
> oh, and heres a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRY4MYm28Wv182LuStdNYMdSVqSZU5DDO), which works for any of my frictional games fics.

**Author's Note:**

> ok, dont know what im doing, but had this idea bouncing round for ages. this has 4 chaps planned, 2 ready, and i dont see it being very long (thankfully lol).


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